Many of our day-to-day activities are uneventful. We go to work and sit at our desk doing our daily duties, answering a few phone calls, emails, and sorting through paper work before rushing out in time to pick up dinner and the kids on the way home. As the day draws to an end, so does the daylight and the skies darken. Headlights crowd the highway and brake lights march into the horizon. Road Crews flood the widened shoulders and narrowed lanes. A police officer, working a roadside accident, navigates traffic around the debris and wreckage. Fire Fighters work to rescue a woman and child from a vehicle while emergency medical service personnel are attempting to revive another. After all of the victims are stable and on their way to the hospital, a tow truck arrives. The operator gets out, sweeps up the broken pieces, and connects the wreckage to his rollback to drag it up onto the flatbed. All of these events are happening in a hostile environment where moving cars, distracted drivers, and low lighting are a recipe for disaster. Not being seen, as well as not having lighting to perform the task at hand exposes these first responders to elevated risk. The officer working the traffic accident may not be visible in the darkness by an oncoming car; the emergency medical technician is having trouble finding a vein to start intravenous fluids while holding a flashlight between neck and shoulder; fire fighters do not have enough light to see what is trapping a victim in the vehicle; and a tow truck operator is having difficulty seeing to hook up the wrecked vehicle to the pull wench. If he turns on the bright lights in order to see the rollback, he may blind approaching drivers that are trying to navigate around the wreckage, while flashing lights from police cars add to the confusion and make it difficult to perceive detail.
There are other examples. There are various solutions for the problem of seeing in low or no light, ranging from flashlights, lanterns, and floodlights for roadside work, to light-emitting diodes attached to a headband. All of these are useful but are not readily adaptable to every circumstance.